It was a Sunday, and we had been warned that Slovenia was shut on Sundays
and the petrol stations had never heard of plastic, so the plan was to
drive straight through and head for Croatia. We stopped at a self-service
petrol station just inside the Italian border where our damp crumpled lira
caused no end of trouble to the machine. We all got a tankfull eventually
and set off. Jeremy promised a hairpin free day as we were all, by this
time, hairpinned out. It was not to be so, Marvin took us the wrong way
out of Tarviso and we ended up going to Slovenia by the wrong pass. It
was a bit wet undertyre and our hearts sank as we arrived at the foot of
the Passo di Predil as the sign clearly labelled the bend as turn 41. Fortunately
it turned out that they numbered them up and down, so only 20 odd bends
later we arrived at the border.
Suddenly it was foreign, the other countries had all merged into each
other seamlessly, and on many cases had dispensed with any sign of a border
at all. Not so here. Unexpectedly we got through with no trouble, although
when Mike got his passport stamped with a visa there was a minor hold-up
as lots of other people decided they wanted theirs done too. Ian went looking
for insurance as we had been unable to sort any out in the UK for Slovenia,
Croatia or Romania. He was informed that it was only available at the larger
border crossing, the one we had bypassed. There was a brief discussion
and we decided to ignore the problem and hope for the best.
Down the other side we found the other 20 or so hairpins, which, for
some perverted reason, were cobbled round the tight bits. From the point
of view of traffic not ripping the road to bits it makes sense, but on
heavily laden bikes in wet weather it wasn't much fun. Jim managed to overheat
his back brake to the point of complete fade, but it came back eventually
once the descent was finished. We then got a bit lost, and had to rely
on the GPSs to get us back on track. We stopped at a petrol station as
the plan to get through Slovenia without stopping had been scuppered by
the scenic entry to the country. It turned out to be new, well equipped
and quite happy to take any currency at all. The price was astonishingly
cheap too. Bravo for the "Petrol" chain of petrol stations say I.
Slovenia proved to be a beautifully scenic country, certainly as nice
as Austria. We were surprised that nearly every car we saw seemed almost
brand new, either Slovenia is on the up or it was a Sunday driver effect.
The fields all had interesting hay drying racks, like a tall clothes horse
with more slats. It seems that one of the real differences between countries
is how they deal with grass. It looks like Slovenia gets lots of sunshine
but rain too, so big flat racks with little roofs work well. We were also
surprised to see a small river running down a scenic valley and steaming
as if very hot. We didn't find out if it was really warm (a hot spring
perhaps?) or just a freak of atmospheric conditions. We got on the main
road (number 1) and blasted through into Croatia. It was agreed later that
this was a mistake, Slovenia deserved better.
The countryside had become significantly flatter by this stage, which
made for good progress but wasn't too interesting. Eventually we arrived
in Zagreb and were riding up the (very wide) main street in to town when
a couple of bikers wearing cut-offs and "Hollister MC Zagreb" colours overhauled
us. One of them turned off, but the other, on a cosmetically challenged
bike with "Scarface" written on the fairing overtook us all and started
hassling Jeremy, our gallant leader. I was rather concerned that we had
stumbled in to some sort of biker gang problem, the 'MC' initials were
somewhat worrying as back home anyone wearing "Hollister MC" on a cut-off
had better be able to defend themselves against the HA. After a few minutes
conversation as we rode along Jeremy signalled that we were to follow the
biker in question, and we were led through various steadily more salubrious
bits of Zagreb, and right through them into rather less salubrious bits.
Eventually we went down a side road where the biker turned off and
parked on the pavement in front of an empty office building, across the
road from a bar with an upstairs window missing between a building well
on the way to falling down, in apparent emulation of the one the other
side which had almost finished the process. I was beginning to get somewhat
concerned by this stage, though felt a little better when the biker removed
her helmet, revealing an unexpectedly female gender and a face apparently
free of obvious scars. She then got on her cellphone, rounding up other
members of the club and the bar manager, in order to open the bar for us.
In dribs and drabs other bikes turned up, all seemingly owned by shorn
headed chaps with goatee beards and cell phones. Soon they outnumbered
us, and opened the bar.
The woman who had originally brought us there was indicating that we
might be able to stay there, and we were suggesting that we might prefer
a campsite. Refusing unwanted hospitality seems to be one of the difficulties
of travel. Not wanting to appear ungrateful I had a beer, as did some others,
though most opted for coke. My anxiousness returned slightly on noticing
just how many pictures on the walls were of torched bikes, as I was rather
counting on mine to get me home. Just as I had got used to the idea that
it would be cool to stay there, drink with the Hollister, and crash out
out back (it was certainly going to take some alcohol to get us loosened
up enough to talk to each other, the Bikers were sat on the grass over
the road) they found us a campsite and one of them offered to take us to
it.
We left for the campsite no doubt leaving the impression that Brit.
bikers are a puffy and effete bunch of coke drinkers. The campsite seemed
to be a converted military installation cum motorway services, and was
very hot and infested with mosquitoes (which were quite happy to eat through
clothes). The Hollister MC bod negotiated a price for us and left. Pity
we couldn't work out what to do with each other really. After pitching
my tent and showering I was unable to find the others, they were not in
the Motel, nor the restaurant (which was full of a gypsy wedding, and we
weren't allowed in). Eventually they were located in the service station
buffet, where a deeply uncheerful serving woman doled out very unappetising
food, until she got bored and went home, about half way through the group.
Beer was served all night though, so marvin wasn't as disgruntled about
missing out on 'sausage in soup' or 'gristle on potatoes' as he might have
otherwise been.